


The Building Blocks of Stardust

by kenzieann27



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M, Minor Bill Denbrough/Eddie Kaspbrak, Minor Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Stanley Uris Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29838492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzieann27/pseuds/kenzieann27
Summary: When a strange young man lands in the alley outside Richie Tozier's apartment building, he was just happy for an excuse to get away from his English paper. That is until he realized just who it was, of course.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Kudos: 3





	The Building Blocks of Stardust

To remember that day was a blessing, Richie knew. To have seen an angel fall from above, to have been a hero? It's all anyone could hope for, really.

Well, maybe not the angel, but they're hardly _anyone_. They qualify for a bit more than just _anyone_.

It was a cold November night, and Richie would have supposed it would have snowed if it weren't for the terrible storm. Lightning raged across the sky, interrupting what should have been a quiet night of studying for the twenty-two-year-old college senior. The storm was mostly at the edge of the city, though, so he hardly could have used it as an excuse as to why his English paper hadn't been written. Until, of course, he had been distracted from an agonizingly tough sentence (writing was never his strongest subject) not due to the missing storm outside his window but a harsh banging sound, something Richie would have waved off as the result of raccoons or stray cats if he weren't needing any excuse to get away from that laptop for five minutes.

A good bet, too, as it had turned out to be a much better excuse for that prissy Professor Hadley, really.

It looked like a murder had taken place- to Richie, anyway, who hadn't bothered to find his glasses just to go outside to scare off some small animal from the dumpster. It wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence that he went outside to find a body lying on the pavement, unmoving and covered in the stench of death. Or what Richie had supposed was what death smelled like; admittedly, he'd never smelled a dead person before. Upon further inspection, though, which Richie had done on a whim before going back into the building to call the police, he discovered that the young man was not, in fact, dead. From his painted groans, however, it wasn't exactly as if he escaped from whatever happened to him without a scratch. More than a scratch, actually; internal bleeding, probably.

It wasn't until that morning that everything became clear, as the young man woke up on a foreign couch and nearly strangled Richie out of fear of what was going on… of the lack of what was going on, honestly. Then he realized he wasn't in his clothes. And it pained him just to sit up. And he would look at Richie as the full weight of the situation hit him like a semi truck slamming into a brick wall.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked Richie, staring down at his pale legs underneath the plush blanket that was draped across his lap.

"I- shit. To be fair, I didn't really… I thought you were dead, so," Richie stammered, watching as the strange young man did nothing but sigh in response. "I'm sorry about your clothes, I, uh… I didn't… I don't care who you are. I just saw how much you were bleeding and it looked like you stuck yourself in a house fire, so I just- I needed to know you were okay, you know. I didn't want to just leave you out by the dumpsters when you clearly needed help."

"I do not need help," he responded flatly. "You made yourself a target, actually. I was asking who you were so I know who to help when they come for you."

Scoffing, Richie shook his head. He'd met his fair share of pretentious assholes in his life (he _was_ a theatre major, after all), but this guy certainly was something else. "I don't think you're in a position to be asking me questions, bud. I spent my night and my only vacation day from school saving your ass, so I think I deserve to be the one asking questions."

The young man nodded, debating Richie's words in his mind before sighing. "You must have countless questions for me, so you can go ahead and ask them. I need a few moments to take everything in before I am strong enough to leave anyway. Fire away."

"How are you still alive?" Richie had blurted out the question so quickly that he would have hardly realized he asked it if it weren't for the stranger in his apartment turning around and glaring at him. "It's just… well, I've only taken a few anatomy classes- for requirements, of course- I just know that, well, you are more littered with scars than the freeway is littered with actual garbage, if you get what I mean."

"I don't know why it comes to be such a surprise to you," he shrugged, turning back around and playing with a loose thread on the shirt that most certainly didn't belong to him. "I mean, you know what I do."

There were three of them, Richie knew; or, at least, three of them that were as outspoken as possible with what they could do. He wanted to call them superheroes, like most people did, though the federal government just referred to them as anomalies, strange beings that no one could understand but only seemed to want to help. Something, obviously, the federal government didn't understand in the slightest and thus kept eyes on at all times.

This one, the one sitting beyond uncomfortably and anxiously on Richie's couch, was the strangest of the three he knew of. The other two, well… it was obvious they knew who they were seen as. They knew people saw them as heroes so they acted like heroes; they wore stupid special outfits that let everyone know they were different, they were unique, they were important. It was beyond those clothes, those masks, though, that really set them apart for Richie. It was the way they held themselves, the way they were so confident even if their existence was pure luck. But this one, of course, was nothing like them. He was so casual, seemingly refused to take part in their goodness by wearing nothing more than comfortable joggers and a plain t-shirt. He never hid his face, never felt the need to. Until now, anyway.

"I can't die. A lot of the scars I have are the result of trial and error, I suppose. You can take that any way you wish."

Richie nodded as he spoke, his next question almost instinctively leaving him as the realization hit him. "What's your name?"

The stranger turned around once more, suspicion clearly on his face as he looked Richie up and down. Frowning, Richie moved closer, opting to sit in a chair opposite the couch than next to the young man and avoiding more awkwardness. 

"Stanley," he said at last, keeping an uncomfortable amount of eye contact with Richie as he said so. "I'm only telling you that because you're not a threat, so I suspect you'll be able to keep that to yourself. I have been wrong before, though, but I'd rather you not prove me wrong."

"You don't know a thing about me, dude," Richie laughed.

"On the contrary," Stanley began, groaning as he stood up and looked around the tiny studio apartment, "I know everything about you, Richard. Though I don't need to prove anything to you, I know you are going to ask me to, so I'll humor you by saying you are beyond attracted to your neighbor, something you will never pursue because, well… this is still a bit fuzzy to me, but just by looking at how horribly disgusting your apartment is coupled with the defenses you are so obviously putting up, I would guess this is a sensitive topic because he shot you down."

"I-"

"Oh, no need to explain or question me or whatever you're going to do," Stanley trailed off, slowly making his way over to the kitchen with a slight limp. "I know how that feels. Well, maybe not emotionally, but I suppose literally being shot out of the sky is a good enough comparison to how you're feeling."

"Is that what happened to you?" Richie asked softly, wanting desperately to change to conversation.

Stanley hummed in response, taking a bottle of water from the fridge. "You should really consider not buying plastic water bottles, by the way. Just get yourself a nice reusable one… it's a good investment, plus, y'know, you're not actively killing the environment." He paused before taking a desperate drink from the bottle, replacing the cap tightly and setting the bottle down on the counter. "I don't remember exactly what happened last night- not yet, anyway- but it was essentially nothing more than a disagreement between two people who don't deserve to have arguments. Not when it results in people almost being killed."

"You were fighting? You and the others like you?"

"The red idiot, yes," he replied, rolling his eyes. "That's the color of that moronic outfit of his, anyway. To us, he's simply known as Bill. Feel free to spread that name around as much as you'd like."

"What were you fighting about?"

"That's the part that escapes me, I think. It'll come back to me, I suppose, but… what am I wearing?" Stanley asked as he looked down at himself, noticing that there was a flashy pink saying on the otherwise perfectly normal (if not oversized) shirt that he was wearing at the moment. "These are not my clothes."

"Oh, yeah, uh… your clothes were just covered in blood and dirt and garbage and shit- not actual shit," he added quickly, noticing Stanley's reaction to being told what had happened to the most defining thing about him. "Oh, and they were, uh, pretty burned up. I'm assuming that was the doing of your friend there. On the bright side, though, you're gonna get a super badass scar on your back pretty soon."

"It was the first time he attacked me like that. Bill's always been pretty short-tempered, I suppose, but he'd never do that. Well, he's just some asshole to me now, so there's no point in justifying what he did. I just don't want you thinking he's done this before or that he'd do this to regular people."

"I consider him the bad guy if he just attacked you for no reason," Richie frowned. "I don't think any of us really knew he could do that, let alone use it to attack people."

Bill, as Stanley called him, seemed to be the leader of the three; or, at least, he gave off the best leadership qualities. Ever the nerd, it was Bill that gave them those numb nicknames he hoped would catch on but never did, as really only nerds understand Greek mythology, if Richie was being completely honest (as a nerd himself, he only somewhat was familiar with the topic). To the people, Bill was known by his power to control something that would come off as useless- the air- if the air didn't have a constant electric charge that also could be utilized to, for example, electrocute those he didn't want around anymore. That is, unless the person he was trying to get rid of physically could not be rid of in the slightest.

"The yellow one is the real weakness," Stanley nodded as he explained, tapping his fingers rhymically against the counter. "Eddie. Bill has a big soft spot for that one in case I can't convince him to stand down."

"You're talking about them like this is some war," Richie scoffed, joining Stanley in the kitchen. "So you and this jackass had a disagreement. Just move on and be done with that shit. If we knew where you were, don't you think he'd be here already?"

"If Bill knew where I was, we wouldn't be having this conversation, no," he replied, glaring at Richie knowingly.

"Clearly, I can't read minds like you can, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there's more to this than you're letting on, dude."

"I don't remember what I said to make Bill attack me, but I know he was upset about what some woman from the government had to say to him. He didn't tell us, I think, but the next thing I remember is waking up here. It might not be a war at all," he shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I know because, for the most part, you are a trustworthy person. Or, at least, you have been. The little one, Eddie, he's… a lot. He can't do much, not really, but there's history between him and Bill that I've never understood. They put their heads on lockdown whenever I'm around."

"Yeah, I can't imagine why."

Stanley shrugged as he took another long drink from the bottle, setting it down on the counter though kept it in his hands as he spoke. "I can't control it, so don't act like it's some inconvenience for _you_. It's one of the only reasons I stuck with Bill for so long. You seem like a smart guy, so I can explain it in words adults can understand, but the simple explanation is that Bill _could_ control it. It's electric charges in your brain that lets you think, you know, so he just… Bill stopped it. I went crazy without him," he explained, his voice shaking as he recalled those memories. "But working with him was a constant battle. Others' thoughts, well, it was my entire brain working to process them; wants, fears, the things they saw, heard, smelled… I knew all of it. What Bill did is, you know…"

"He turned you into a zombie."

"Essentially, yes. Everything I did was unconscious because he was the one doing it. I processed it, but he was the one in control." His hands shook as he spoke, gripping the water bottle so tight Richie believed it would crack at any moment. "At the time, it was what I needed, so I was fine with it."

"Maybe that's why you were fighting. You wanted yourself back," Richie reasoned. "That's a good enough reason for me to want to kick the shit out of someone. No one's controlling me but me."

"No, no, it's- he hasn't been doing that to me for about a year now. Eddie, he… I never cared to understand Eddie, but he's brilliant, that one. Bill was tired of juggling controlling me and the rest of his life, so he had Eddie make this, uh… it's not important," Stanley shook his head. "Anyway. War or not, I can't just let them get away with trying to kill me. I'm going to go after them, if only just to get some answers."

"I think you should just let them go."

"As much as I would like to, really, we were a team. We were responsible for each other. Checks and balances, you know, it's… God," Stanley winced suddenly, throwing his hand up against his forehead as he held onto the edge of the counter. "Breathe, breathe, breathe," he muttered to himself before regaining his composure, walking back to the couch and sitting down slowly.

"For someone that can tear down buildings with his mind, you really shouldn't be freaking me out this much," Richie tried to joke, only causing Stanley to shake his head. "Are you sure he doesn't know where you are?"

"No, no, it's just… I haven't exactly been this in charge of myself in _years_. It's not- fuck- it's not easy for me to just get back to all of this."

"What were your names?" Richie asked curiously, hoping a change in topic would calm the agitated young man's brain. "You said that idiot came up with names for you guys- God names, which is dumb because you're not gods, but whatever."

"I- I came up with mine, actually," he replied quietly, shutting his eyes tightly as an ugly grimace appeared on his face. "A friend of the people, a hero really only in name despite being an otherwise pretty bad guy. I couldn't really- Greek shit is so boring… I chose Prometheus. I didn't want to go with the obvious, you know, the- Demeter or whatever. I- I wanted someone I could relate to."

"Friend of the people," Richie nodded as he repeated the words, choosing to ignore the rest as the sound of a window shattering behind him tore him away from the young man who belonged anywhere but there.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr! @kenzie-ann27


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